General information

Several good women face several bad men. The women struggle, fight, develop and grow, each through their own story that involves either their talents, or their marriages, or their families. The story is set on a magical land so some of the characters are magical too.

Fun fact #1

I bought the book in summer and planned to read it in winter somewhere in the northern mountains so that I would have snow and a fireplace. The Universe heard my wishes so it brought the snow to my doorstep and a blackout for a day. I improvised “a fireplace” from a few candles and started reading the book.

Fun fact #2

So how was the book?

I was repeatedly warned that Spinning Silver is not as good as Uprooted, an earlier novel by the same author. Taking into account my bad reaction to Uprooted, I wasn’t expecting much. I braced myself for something even worse and probably that’s why I actually liked Spinning Silver more. Although, there are more reasons.

What are the reasons?

No magic spells!

That felt SO good to just be watching the magic without having to go through all the mumble-jumble! There’s still a lot of magic, and the magic is still too often the answer to a problem, but it feels more natural in this book.

Character development

All female characters started as feeble and insecure and grew into something more. Even though I find it horribly predictable, I think it was executed quite well.

The writing

The writing is decent and pleasant. I think it’s better than in Uprooted because it reflects the drama of dynamic moments (unlike the writing in Uprooted).

Some storylines

Some of them are quite interesting.

What I disliked about the book

The attempt to sell the same product twice

Spinning Silver is a spiritual twin of Uprooted. But now, we get a new deal! Get one villain and a good girl, and receive two more of each for free!

Also the voice of Miryem from Spinning Silver is so similar to the voice of Agnieszka from Uprooted that Spinning Silver could be easily sold as a sequel.

All women are good, most men are bad

I’m SO tired of this concept! I understand it’s unfair to blame only Novik for it because it’s a prevailing tendency in all female-authored literature. But it has become too predictable, overused and over-marketed. I understand where it’s coming from, but stories should be more diverse than that, because people are.

The Russian words

I found the whole idea of using Russian words to make the setting feel exotic quite silly, not only because the words don’t sound exotic to me. They were often applied wrongly, so there were dumb combinations like “Staryk children” which, if translated, would be something like “old babies”.

Chapters

Chapters don’t have titles, but each one is written in first person, so it takes a couple of paragraphs to understand what’s going on and whose eyes we’re looking from now. There are quite a lot of characters, so it gets pretty confusing and exhausting.

The plot

The plot got drunk.

For the biggest part of the book the story develops logically. There’s a start, a climax, and then you expect the finale, but it doesn’t happen. Instead the story explodes and goes all possible directions. It’s not a twist, it’s a furball in the wind! Characters start being irrational, hysterical and there are a lot of unnecessary drama-queen monologues going on.

The ending

The ending doesn’t match the overall idea that seems to be promoted in the book.

Final thoughts

I can’t recommend this book because I didn’t enjoy it that much myself, even though it is not a bad book. I’m not sure that the chaos that happens with the plot can be forgiven even by a fantasy lover. I’m definitely not reading any more of Novik’s stories. She’s just not the right author for me.

I decided that I’ll just show you some of my favourite book pictures that I took for the blog. Looking at pictures is always easier than reading a text, especially on days when you just want to relax.

Here are the photos. If you click the titles you’ll get to my reviews of the books.

1. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

(There are more photos of Usyaka and the book.)

2. The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar

3. Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller

4. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

There’s no review because I haven’t read the book yet. (And taking into account my unfortunate experiment with reading fantasy, I’m not sure how soon I will read this one). There’s still this nice wintery photo

5. The Birds and other stories by Daphne du Maurier

Here’s the review of The Birds.

And here are the reviews of the other stories.

6. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

7. Melmoth by Sarah Perry

8. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

9. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

10. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

This book will be one of my first reads in 2019, so come back soon to read the review!

I don’t normally read fantasy. Uprooted was my first attempt in decades to read a book of this genre. It didn’t go very well.

About Uprooted

The setting

The action takes place in a country called Polnya. Polnya is often at war with a country called Rosja (a Polish word for “Russia”). The prince from Polnya is called Marek (a Polish name), the prince from Rosja is called Vasily (a Russian name). In fact, at some point I thought that the Wood, being the big evil which “corrupts” and tortures people, is an allegory for communism.

The characters

There’s a powerful wizard called Dragon who takes a girl from the village every ten years and keeps her in his tower for the period of ten years. Whatever he does to them, the girls don’t want to stay in the village after he lets them go. They move to cities to start new lives.

The main character is Agnieszka who seems to be very simple and talentless until, to Agnieszka’s own surprise, we discover unexpected things about her and start following her adventures.

Good things about the book

The protagonist

As cliché as Agnieszka might be (an ordinary girl who turns out to be not that ordinary), I like her personality. She can be funny, and I like how brave and independent she is. I also like how she grows throughout the story.

The story

I didn’t find the story very beautiful or special, but I’m grateful that it developed and had a logical end.

Visuals

I was completely mesmerised by the images! Gusts of sparkly dust flying up in the air when people make love, soap bubbles carrying voice messages inside, bloodthirsty trees, monstrous cows… How do authors ever come up with such ideas?! Do they practice this skill? This is amazing!

Had the book consisted only of these images, I would have probably loved it. Unfortunately, there were other things too, so…

Let me rant!

Problem solving methods

I got so engrossed by the story when the first disaster had happened! The situation was dire, inescapable! How would the author ever find the way out for her character in a crisis like this? It’s simply impossible! I was so curious, so naive…

Doh!

Fine, I thought. It’s fantasy after all, some magic is bound to happen. As the story progressed, though, I started skipping chunks of the text when problems happened, because I knew how the actions would unfold. My Twitter keeps the memories of my frustration.

The spells

Is it really necessary to devote so much attention to which exactly non-existent words a character uses to solve a problem? Is a reader supposed to care what the character will choose between “abracadabrium” and “bubblegumium”? I honestly don’t know. I didn’t care at all. The words sound silly and the outcome is obvious, anyway.

The character of Dragon

Dragon is always grumpy for the sake of being grumpy. He’s a caricature on grumpiness that makes Shrek or Grinch look deep and sophisticated.

Lethargic description of dramatic situations

I’m not sure if Novik did it on purpose (and why if so), or just failed to convey the tension and dynamism of many dramatic moments. The scenes that are supposed to shock and startle sound monotonous and almost serene. Judge for yourself. (It is a whole paragraph so it can be considered a spoiler although nothing important to the plot is revealed there.)

Somewhere behind me, one of the men sighed deeply — a relieved noise, as though he were setting down a heavy weight. It was loud in the Wood’s silence. I looked around. His scarf had sagged down from his face: it was the friendly young soldier with the broken nose who’d led my horse to water. He reached out with a knife drawn, sharp and bright silver, and he caught the head of the man riding in front of him and cut his throat in a one deep red gash from side to side.

The other soldier died without a sound.

Is it just me or it sounds as captivating as a list of inventory?

Drama cliché

Brave women saving orphaned children and drama queen thoughts after having sex. One word: no.

Final thoughts

I am … confused.

If all fantasy is like that, I don’t want to read it. I outgrew fairytales a long time ago (just for the record, the book is not appropriate for kids because of violence and sex scenes). Theoretically, this is not a bad fantasy book. It got several awards. There are many praising reviews on Goodreads (while I relate more to this negative one). Many bloggers whose opinions I trust also liked this book. There even will be a movie adaptation, produced by Ellen DeGeneres!

Thus, I’m inclined to think that I’m just not compatible with fantasy. Some people from Twitter offered to help me choose a fantasy book that I might enjoy more. That’s why I will give this genre another chance, but not before the spell from this one wears off.